


Not Alone

by DistantStorm



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Comfort, Gen, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e21-22 Zero Hour, Space family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/DistantStorm
Summary: It would take a long time for Kallus to feel like he belonged in the Rebellion, no matter how many lives he’d saved with his crazy, daring actions. His life as a model Imperial would haunt him for the rest of his days. Perhaps, Ezra thought, that penance was proof that he’d really turned towards the good.Kallus sleeps. The Spectres do what they do best: look out for one another.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Ezra Bridger & Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Kanan Jarrus & Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 33
Kudos: 263





	Not Alone

A weight settled on Garazeb Orrelios gradually. At least, it had, right up until the end, when Kallus slumped the last little bit against his shoulder as dead weight. Zeb did his best not to flinch, lest he wake the other man and peered down at him from a sharp angle. Definitely asleep. His breaths were slower than they were upon waking, and sounded thicker at the ends to someone like Zeb with (slightly) better-than-human hearing. 

The galley was quiet, Ezra had been practicing his meditation in the open space across the way, and Sabine was with her clan, preparing for their trip back to her family's home. Kanan sat on the other side of Zeb, drinking some foul concoction of Jedi-tea that he for some reason enjoyed. He still complained about it, but had more than adjusted to the weird smell.

"Doesn't look like he's been sleeping," Kanan murmured. His voice is so soft, so careful, Zeb almost wondered if he'd said it right into his mind.

"I don't think 'e has," Zeb whispered back, as low as his voice will let him. "If I move him he'll wake up for sure."

"Better get comfy then," The Jedi chuckled, but Kanan wasn't sarcastic, just teasing. He placed a hand on Zeb's other shoulder. Squeezed reassuringly. These last few years since Ezra had come along had changed all of them. Sometimes Zeb was thrown by just how much. Kanan never used to be so tactile. "Comm me if you need anything, alright? "

"Yeah," Zeb said, plucking his comm link from his belt and placing it on the table in front of him. "Thanks."

Another squeeze and he was leaving. Kanan stepped quietly but his boots were still loud in the silence. Kallus didn't notice though. That was good. Very good, Zeb thought.

Four hyperspace jumps - by Chopper's request and Rex's hearty agreement - that took them across the galaxy and back had given them plenty of time to get the excess people who evacuated on the Ghost situated on the remaining larger transports at the first drop, then allowed them to separate to make any trailing Imperials' lives more difficult. Zeb had expected a fight to keep Kallus with them - or as close to a fight as one could get with the ridiculous number of passengers in such a small space - but Hera's concerns had been quelled by Ezra and Kanan with such surety Zeb was nearly touched. He wasn't afraid to vouch for the ex-Imperial, but for someone else to step in first definitely looked better for Kallus overall. 

Kallus inhaled sharply, jolting him from his thoughts. Instinct took over and Zeb tried not to think about it, carefully nudging the man's injured leg up and onto the other side of the curved booth by extending his dexterous foot, ignoring the small groan of pain and sigh from the readjustment. Kallus's eyes didn't open, and Zeb counted himself lucky. Now, he had his back to Zeb's side. It worked well enough, but now his left arm was going numb. Tiny pinpricks sliced down his smallest finger, tingling up through his forearm.

But, considering the bruised man leaning against him, who probably hadn't slept in days, Zeb found he didn't mind. He'd taken thirty hours of hyperspace to utter more than a handful of words and three more after that to be coaxed into the galley to be somewhat triaged. Zeb had met Hera's eyes over a particularly boot shaped bruise to Kallus's flank. His ribs were broken for sure, but despite the pain Kallus had refused any medication. Hera had made it clear there was nothing noble about it, and Zeb had waved her off while Kallus's head was turned. 

Zeb could relate. He'd felt similarly before, on this very ship. They - Kanan and Hera - had taken him on at his lowest point. He had struggled to have conversations, to adapt. He struggled not to find answers at the bottom of a bottle when they were planetside. Kallus was far more grounded, but at a cost. He had the eyes of a dead man, flat and devoid of light, affect muted. At least on the ice moon, Kallus displayed emotions. He wouldn’t have signalled them if he didn’t want to live, Zeb knew, but it would take a while for his rational mind to wrap around the fact that he deserved it.

Kanan lingered in the doorway to the galley, murmuring something to Hera down the hall, shaking his head shortly. No, she didn’t need to intervene. Yes, Zeb had things under control. He would absolutely let them know if either he or Kallus needed anything. 

And then, softer still, “Survivor’s guilt is tricky. Give him time.”

Hera’s hummed, but her voice was warm with affection. “I know, love,” She murmured, standing on her toes to peek over Kanan’s shoulder into the galley. Zeb tried not to feel too embarrassed and failed miserably, but didn’t dare move. Kallus’s breathing was steady, the arm he’d braced over his own ribs seeming to help with the pain he no-doubt felt.

“Satisfied?” Kanan asked her. 

She answered by pressing her lips to his cheek. “Not especially,” She murmured sarcastically as she pulled away. “I’d like to dunk him in bacta and drug him.”

“That makes two of us,” Zeb grunted, then cast a look at Ezra, meditating but likely still alert to his surroundings. “Now would you two go do _whatever you do_ in your alone time and leave us be?”

Hera rolled her eyes. Kanan grinned. “I mean, I am going with Sabine,” Zeb heard him say as they descended down the hall. “Who knows when I’ll-”

Silence took over the room again, save for the louder than usual breaths of Kallus, the whirring of the life support system of the Ghost, and the dull roar of the transport ship barrelling through hyperspace. It was almost peaceful. Zeb did his best to tip his head back comfortably and drift, though his ears were stiff and alert.

He slipped back into his Honor-Guard mentality so easily. He didn’t need to seem at attention to be aware of the way Ezra’s breath hitched over some thought in his mind or the Force (Zeb could never be sure with either Jedi), or to hear the muffled rattle that suggested Chopper had docked in his charging cradle. He knew the exits and entry-points, could map it all out in his head, senses primed and ready to adjust and adapt. If someone came in from beside Ezra and spooked Kallus awake, he’d be able to reach a giant hand over and keep him down without letting him bash his shoulder or ribs on the table, but without truly restraining him.

Of course, he didn’t take into account how long he’d been awake, so when he woke up minutes, hours, _some_ time later, he could only be thankful he’d done so before Kallus had woken up. It had been Ezra’s footsteps that did it, though he did have to give the kid credit for standing up nearly silently.

“He’s having a nightmare,” Ezra said softly to Zeb, his eyes shining with concern. “I can feel it.”

It made sense. Kallus’s forehead was pinched, and his upper body curled in on itself. Zeb exhaled and looked up to the young Jedi. “Can you do somethin’ about it?”

“Probably not without freaking him out more,” He said. “I don’t know that you can just order someone to stop having a bad dream with the Force anyways.”

That wasn’t a big help. “So what were you going to do then?”

“I was gonna wake you up,” Ezra said, like that was the solution to everything.

Zeb looked at Kallus, slumped against his side, head tilted towards his chest. He couldn’t see all of the human’s face at this angle, only part of the side of it. “And what was I going to do to help?” He asked.

That earned him a look. “How many times did you, y’know, help me with nightmares after Kanan took me in?”

Yellow-green eyes met blue. With sharp seriousness, Zeb whispered, “I have no idea what yer talking about.”

Ezra smiled. “Yeah, I know,” He said, fond. “Anyway, I’d suggest the same technique.”

By ‘same technique,’ Ezra meant the gentle shake and soft words that Zeb had (more than) once or twice used to coax a very young Ezra from dreamscapes of horror and anxiety about everything and anything, from the Empire and his parents to Kanan abandoning him, to their crew - their family - being killed by Stormtroopers, then Inquisitors, and finally, Vader. More importantly to Ezra, he’d never breathed a word about it. Never held it over Ezra’s head, no matter how much they fought in the beginning. And he’d continued to deny it, even after Kanan’s bond with his young padawan had strengthened enough to alert him to one of those nightmares and he’d stumbled into their shared quarters to find Zeb hushing the tiny Jedi, reminding him where he was, that he was safe.

It had taken him a long time for Ezra to understand his place, too. Hera really had a way of collecting misfits. Sabine had been much the same, but far more stoic.

It was good, though. They helped each other.

“Got this?”

“I think so,” Zeb answered Ezra with a curt nod. “Scram, kid. No witnesses.”

“You got it,” He saluted with a cheeky grin. “Take care of him.”

Zeb’s tiny smile curled his lips, showing off one single fang. “Yeah,” He said. “I will.”

Ezra crept quietly out of the galley and down the hall. He could hear the sharp gasp, felt the ice-cold wash of fear when Kallus woke from whatever terror he saw in his dreams. But he could also hear the low murmur of Zeb, knew without a doubt that the ferocious-seeming Lasat was combing his fingers through Kallus’s hair or stroking his arm, telling him in a rumbling purr that he was on the Ghost, he’d been asleep for about four hours now, that they’d have another two jumps before Yavin. He could go back to sleep, he was fine right where he was. That he’d survived Thrawn and the Empire. That he was one of them.

And Kallus was, Ezra knew.

Something shifted, on that ice moon. Something that had sent Kallus on a quest for truth. Ezra didn’t doubt for a minute that it had been Zeb. Zeb, who had kept an open mind, who respected and rewarded loyalty, bravery, and honor. Zeb, who hadn’t sold Kallus out after he’d been rescued. 

It would take a long time for Kallus to feel like he belonged in the Rebellion, no matter how many lives he’d saved with his crazy, daring actions. His life as a model Imperial would haunt him for the rest of his days. Perhaps, Ezra thought, that penance was proof that he’d really turned towards the good.

But he wasn’t alone anymore. That wasn’t how things worked with the Spectres. They could handle a Fulcrum agent, too.


End file.
